


Value Your Tongue

by alottlehomo



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, protective!jenkins, tw for panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6012994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alottlehomo/pseuds/alottlehomo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezekiel is fine. Totally fine. His lungs feel like they're collapsing but that's fine. Jenkins stop threatening people</p>
            </blockquote>





	Value Your Tongue

It starts out simple enough. The team is working some small case from the clipping book a few weeks after Flynn and Baird have come back, and things are how they were. The three of them have been at it for hours while the recently reanimated love birds were out on a weekly date night, recently instated by Baird. The couple had left without so much as a cursory, “ You’ve got this” to the rest of them. Of course, it wasn’t like they needed one, but it had become so commonplace when Baird did let them work on their own, that it’s absence was off-putting. At least to Ezekiel.

  
Ezekiel who was, in fact, the least appreciated member of the team, he was sure, and of course given the grunt work. Working through a card catalog he doesn't know how to use. Looking for whatever freaky-Deaky tribute this Selkie wanted in exchange for its peace. It’s frustrating and stupid, he decided about three hours into it all. Cassandra was sleeping, leaving him alone with the number one most jock like nerds, Ezekiel had ever had the displeasure of working with, even counting the M16.

  
“ Seriously, you are so entitled, who doesn’t know how to use a card catalog? Couldn't you steal some book and learn in all your free time? Honestly, technology is great until guys like you show up and just waste it, and use it to get out of learning basic life skills. ” Stone scoffed at him, taking the card section Ezekiel had been looking through. “ What master thief relies on technology he can break through and change to tell him where something is?”

  
“Some master thief.”

  
Ezekiel's head swims and suddenly he's moving. He isn’t one hundred percent certain how he got off the step stool and across the room, but he’s pushing through a door in the next second, sinking to his knees on the floor of what he determines, by the familiar study chair a few feet away, to be Jenkins' bedroom. It's with a hysterical, bubbly laugh that he sticks his head in his hands and rocks, trying to breathe, Jenkins' name coming in uncertain and choked grunts from his lips.

  
Ezekiel is shaking too much, and crying too hard, and when did air become so thick? Probably after the first time he watched Cassandra cry with the realization she was likely going to die, is what Ezekiel's head supplies. Another laugh meets his ears, which sounds as far away as his breath feels and he guesses this is what drowning must be like. He gags and sobs, because of all the horrible things in his head right now, he doesn’t need to think about the M16. No, what he needs is Jenkins to wake up, and talk to him in that snide voice that tells him just how much more the old knight has seen than he lets on.

  
It’s like Jenkins heard him, he’ll joke later because not thirty seconds passes and he feels solid, stocky hands on his shoulders. They’re pressing down on him like they’re trying to remind him he isn’t falling and there’s ground right beneath his feet. Ezekiel heaves a deep breath because, of course, it’s just what he needs. Jenkins always knows what he needs. Ezekiel would think it was funny because of how short the older man is with everyone else, but he hasn’t been ‘everyone else’ since a week after he moved into the annex. When Jenkins found him sitting up in the kitchen after a nightmare, with enough baked goods to feed a small army. That had been fun to explain, but worth it in the end. The incident had brought them closer in a way that Ezekiel was selfishly glad to say, the others hadn’t managed to get with the older man yet.

  
“Ezekiel. You need to breathe.” Jenkins said crisply, voice all gravelly in the way Jones recognized as being woken from a deep sleep before he’d had his morning tea. “ Ezekiel. Focus on me, breathe, tell me what happened.” Ezekiel recognized that tone change too, from the gas incident, when all the pipes had leaked into that little room and Jenkins had come to the rescue. It hadn’t been in front of the others, Ezekiel knew never to expect that, but afterward, when the others were asleep and they were as alone as they were going to be that night Jenkins had stared, and in that voice asked why he’d said no. That too had been fun.

  
As Jenkins stooped even lower, seeking out Ezekiel’s eyes and failing when the younger man ducked his head, Ezekiel tried to find something to say. He felt steadier, his breathing more even and easier to grasp but he wasn’t okay, not really. He’d already woken Jenkins though, and that was help enough, the only warrant of telling Jenkins what happened would be pity and that was the last thing he ever wanted.

  
“I’m fine.” he attempted, but the words slurred and he couldn’t discern one word from another with the gross sound of his heaving breaths drowning them both out. In the end, it didn’t matter. In the end, Jenkins’ gave him a look that he knows. That look that means everything’s really, truly fine because Jenkins looks furious just like every other time Ezekiel does something stupid and reckless that they both know could get him killed. Ezekiel muses to himself later that it really shouldn’t have been that comforting, but it helped him breathe again and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

  
When he finally comes down, and it takes a while, that look of fury has that concern behind it that it kept the whole time he’d had gas poisoning.

  
“Tell me what happened.” Jenkins demanded, “ And none of that I’m fine. I’m old, not blind and deaf. The last I saw you and Stone were trying to find a Vaidurya for the Selkie, did something go wrong? Are you hurt?” the older man plows on and there was something in the inflection of his voice that he almost coined as protective, in that righteous way he used to have when he told Ezekiel stories about the dumb things Leon and sir Gawaine got up to that almost always ended with him at the end of some drunkards blade. It distracts him for a long moment, just imagining being held to the same respect and regard as the men he knew Jenkins held closest to that old heart of his.

  
“Stone.” Ezekiel said eventually, breathless and slightly gravelly from the way his throat had spasmed with failed breaths, “ Stone was just being a prick, that’s all, said something that I- that I remember from the game after picking at all my buttons.” he stuttered out before clearing his throat hard in an attempt to get rid of the shakes racking down his spine. “ But I’m okay, I’m fine now, it’s cool.” he forced one of those smiles he’d send anyone he wanted to get his way with. It seemed to have the opposite effect on Jenkins, and the immortal squeezed his shoulders, giving him an inspecting, suspicious look before deeming him well and honest enough and - leaving. Jenkins was walking out.

  
Ezekiel scrambled to follow him, his limbs still jellied from the adrenaline rush that had come and gone in a fast wave, making him slower than even a barely-awake old man with an apparent mission.

  
When he finally staggered his way past the lines of bookshelves between Jenkins’ room and the annex stairs, the sight he was greeted with was confusing and more concerning than he wanted to consider plausible after an episode.

  
Jacob was cornered between the big desk and a livid Jenkins who looked all the world like his looks could kill and maybe they could, Ezekiel realized as he saw a still recovering excalibur hovering behind Jenkins in a defensive position. Blade pressed against the underside of Stone’s jaw.

  
And Stone, he looked genuinely terrified, being threatened by a five hundred plus year old immortal even in his night clothes was disconcerting and scary, Ezekiel would know after his first night in the annex when he tried to steal a single cup of one of Jenkins’ special tea’s he kept hidden behind the cheap stuff in the cupboard. Of course all he could be doing was threatening too, not just talking, demanding to know what Ezekiel did, and he knew this of course because he couldn’t hear a word but he could see Jenkins’ lips moving fast and precise.

  
Ezekiel thinks he may have made out the words cut and tongue in a sentence but dismisses the idea quickly for it’s ridiculousness despite the way Stone is looked exceptionally paler and appeared to be a large bobble-head as his head bounced in a rapid nod.

  
The sword might be doing a thing or two as well, Ezekiel considers as he stumbled the rest of the way down the stairs, shaking himself out in an attempt to put the arrogant spring he’d practiced for hours years ago back into his step.

  
When he gets close enough that’s when he hears it, Jacob is terrified and he’s quiet as a mouse but Ezekiel hears him whisper, “ I didn’t know, I’m sorry I didn’t think he remembered… or that you’d care so much man, it won’t happen again.” and they both stare as Jenkins nods curtly and straightens his sleeping shirt before turning sharply on his heel and practically marching towards the kitchen.

  
Ezekiel followed him quickly, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Stone as he passed and almost making it too, until he heard Stone clear his throat with a quick, “ Hey Jones, wait! I’m sorry, okay, you know you told us you didn’t remember and I didn’t.. I wasn’t thinking man and you know - ” and the whole spiel was almost funny, certainly the most awkward thing Ezekiel had ever heard him say at least he thought so, until he heard what came next. “ You and Jenkins.. I didn’t think you were - I mean are you two, is that a Thing?” Jacob stuttered and that was a sound Ezekiel had never wanted to hear, least of all in hand with Stone asking that particular question.

  
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Ezekiel said back, not even glancing over his shoulder to look at the other man as he made a break for it. He’d seen plenty of people use that line in movies to avoid uncomfortable questions, he didn’t recall any of them running away though but he could blame that on the way his skin felt like it was on fire, still buzzing with energy from his attack. Absolutely not from watching someone else stand up for him.

  
Someone else who met him in the arch of the kitchen with a steaming cup of tea that didn’t smell like Ezekiel’s favorite but Jenkins’.

  
Ezekiel wondered to himself when that had become so routine after his nightmares and panic attacks, which had only become more frequent since he’d watched everyone die, since he started having the nightmares where Jenkins had been there too. Those were definitely worse.

  
“Don’t. Do not say a word. I will not be lectured by an adrenaline infused thief, with self destructive tendencies. Drink. We’ll go to bed once you’ve finished I’m less sure you’ll just have a nightmare.” Jenkins ordered him and Ezekiel scoffed, taking the tea cup, that had promptly been shoved into his face, with a muffled “ bossy” and mild complaints of how Jenkins’ brew was far too minty.

  
The pair were leaning against the counter as Ezekiel drank when Jacob awkwardly shuffled in to get a snack, presumably, only to almost sprint back out when Jenkins shifted closer to Ezekiel out of unconscious defense.

  
Ezekiel would think it was odd, but mostly because he was too busy finishing his tea to see the glare pointed sternly in the direction of the door.

  
They go to Jenkins’ room again as soon as Ezekiel is finished and it should be more awkward. They’ve never both gotten into the bed at once before, it’s always been Ezekiel stumbling in long after Jenkins’ has gone to bed, but it isn’t awkward. Mostly because Jenkins falls in first and curtly pulls Ezekiel into his chest but also because it doesn’t need to be.

  
Jenkins would just as soon yell at Ezekiel as he would yell at Jacob and Flynn, he’d just as soon jump to Ezekiel’s defense as he would anyone else, and maybe Jenkins wouldn’t do this with the others but it was still okay because Ezekiel knew better than to think it was all around special treatment. Even if he did get to drink Jenkins’ tea and hold his hand on the rare occasion they had time and very rarely when Jenkins let him poke fun without consequence.

  
Maybe he did get away with a lot, and maybe him being so comfortable curling into Jenkins’ chest with his head tucked under the older mans chin was inexplicable but what did it really matter when it was a two way street? If Jenkins’ ever needed anything Ezekiel would handle it in ten seconds flat and if anyone had the poor persuasion to hurt the old knight? Ezekiel pitied them until he tore them apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Guys don't forget to leave a kudos and a comment if you liked it! Comment if you didn't like it too, I'm here for constructive criticism, I only want to get better and write more!


End file.
